Rob Blackston: EDTECH Learning Log

I'm just going to say it, my digital footprint is important to me. In casual conversation you will hear me say, "I don't care what people think of me". This is definitely true but why would I knowingly give people a reason to doubt my integrity or morals. I think that having a positive and secure digital footprint can be a valuable representation of who you are. I really try to keep my digital footprint as professional as possible. To provide myself and others a guide to creating or keeping a positive digital footprint, I have created a presentation in Google Slides. This presentation outlines 10 tips that I feel are important in keeping your online identity secure and representative of a professional. Please feel free to leave comments.

The digital footprint is one of the most stressed points that I make to my students, as they prepare to enter a professional field. As they are introducing themselves into the surgical field, I find it important to impress upon them, they are a “walking resume” from day one. People often say, “it’s a small world” and they don’t realize how true that really is. I tell my students that the medical community is small but the surgical community is even smaller. I impress that everything that they do, say or put on Facebook, is another line written in their resume. If they work hard, conduct themselves with integrity and have pride in their profession, their resume will shine. However, if they berate someone on Facebook or Twitter and show pictures of themselves that others could view as negative, then they are limiting their possibilities. I searched my own digital footprint and found that things were pretty benign. I have tried to brand myself as a professional and represent my p

When I started on Twitter it was just because it was new and everyone else was doing it. It quickly became too time consuming to keep up with all of the new social media platforms. Between life, school and work, I did not put much stock in the usefulness of the social media craze. The idea of using, not just Twitter but other social media platforms, to engage in quality professional development, adds a new justification to the effectiveness and appeal of Twitter and the others. Over the past week, I have added multiple surgical hashtags to my TweetDeck and have found them to be very useful. Since I am actively engaged in my profession of surgical technology and surgical technology education, I have found much use in following these Tweets. One of the first things that I found was links to many medical and surgical videos. These can be very helpful for professionals, students and educators. There is one in particular that I follow and that is @MedicalVids. I have al

In Module 2, we looked at Communities of Practice, Connectivism and Personal Learning Networks. These concepts are similar but have distinct roles in furthering knowledge and gaining support. Communities of Practice I n the medical field, professionals need to embrace a dynamic knowledge path. What I mean is, because medicine and technology advance so rapidly, the professional must always be learning the newest and most effective method of treating a patient. “ A community of practice is not merely a club of friends or a network of connections between people. It has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest” (Wenger, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B., 2015).  I have chosen a picture of a neural pathway to represent the CoP. A nerve impulse travels throughout an intricate network of nerves that ultimately converge at the brain. The common goal is to deliver a message and each nerve is working towards a common goal. Connectivism In the digital